LONDON, July 27 (Reuters) – Hedge funds are more bearish
about the outlook for U.S. oil prices than at any time for
almost five years, according to data from the U.S. Commodity
Futures Trading Commission.

Hedge funds and other money managers had a net long position
in WTI-linked futures and options equivalent to just 118 million
barrels of oil on July 21, down from a recent high of 294
million barrels 11 weeks earlier (link.reuters.com/pug35w).

LONDON (Reuters) – “The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is not an ATM,” Lisa Murkowski, chair of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee warned the Senate this week. “It is certainly not the petty cash drawer for Congress.”

The senator from Alaska was criticizing a proposal to sell 101 million barrels of crude from the government’s stocks to offset a shortfall in funding in the highway trust fund.

LONDON (Reuters) – Futures prices are making it increasingly profitable to store surplus crude in the United States, coinciding with a strong period of oil imports and a further build up of already swollen stockpiles.

WTI crude futures prices imply the market is paying more than 61 cents per month to cover the cost of financing and storing oil at the Cushing delivery hub during the fourth quarter of 2015.

LONDON, July 22 (Reuters) – No new well completion reports
have been filed in North Dakota since July 10, the longest gap
this year, according to daily activity records published by the
state’s Department of Mineral Resources (DMR).

Completions, rather than wells drilled, provide the best
guide to short-term changes in output, since operators can
always delay completing a well and putting it into production,
either because they are waiting for completion crews to be
available or to wait for better prices.

LONDON, July 21 (Reuters) – California motorists are paying
$1 per gallon more for gasoline than drivers in the rest of the
country as problems at state refineries leave the state fuel
market unusually tight.

The average price of gasoline sold in the state was $3.95
per gallon on Monday, compared with a nationwide average of
$2.89, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration
(link.reuters.com/xyx25w).

LONDON, July 20 (Reuters) – Hedge funds and other money
managers have rarely been so bearish about the outlook for oil
prices, according to the latest positioning data from the U.S.
Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Hedge funds boosted short positions in futures and options
linked to the price of U.S. crude to 138 million barrels by July
14, from 84 million four weeks earlier. Over the same period,
they cut long positions from 340 million to 292 million barrels.

LONDON, July 17 (Reuters) – The oil market was massively
oversupplied in the second quarter and remains so today, the
International Energy Agency (IEA) wrote in its latest monthly
oil market report.

“The market’s ability to absorb that oversupply is unlikely
to last. Onshore storage space is limited. So is the tanker
fleet. New refineries do not get built every day. Something has
to give,” the agency warned starkly.

LONDON, July 15 (Reuters) – Iran has big ambitions to
increase oil and gas production once sanctions are lifted but a
substantial increase in exports is probably years away.

The country has the world’s fourth-largest proved reserves
of crude oil (behind Venezuela, Saudi Arabia and Canada) and the
largest proved reserves of natural gas (ahead of Qatar and
Russia), according to BP.

About John

"John joined Reuters in 2008 as one of its first financial columnists, specialising in commodities and energy. While his main focus is on oil markets, he has written broadly on the emergence of commodities as an asset class, regulatory issues and macroeconomic themes. Before joining Reuters, John spent seven years as a senior analyst for Sempra Commodities (now part of JP Morgan) covering base metals and crude oil. Previously, he worked as an analyst on world trade, banking and financial regulation for consultancy Oxford Analytica."